


Birthday Gifts Aren't a Big Deal

by JudithSykes



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Drift, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3343676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudithSykes/pseuds/JudithSykes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What struck Hermann as strangest of all about his lab-partner was that Newton never forgot his birthday. Even the first year when they had been working together for only scant months – Newton had known. The gifts were often thoughtful (in a very Newton sort of way). They were always black market and they were exactly what he hadn’t thought he needed.<br/>What didn’t occur to Hermann until year six or seven of their volatile cohabitation was that they had never celebrated Newton’s  birthday. Ever. Not once. No friends. No party. No cake, gifts or cards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday Gifts Aren't a Big Deal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disamphigory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disamphigory/gifts).



> This is a very late JaegerCon Tumblr Fic for PrinceHal9000 - Your patience is godly!!!

Newton Geiszler wasn’t anything that Hermann had expected as far as lab partners went. Mostly it was like sharing a lab with an over enthusiastic five-year-old. There were afternoon naps and snack times, crayon drawings and socks all over the lab.  He was often reminded of the squirrels that lived in the roof of his apartment when he did his lecture semester at MIT. He had imagined a poltergeist at first until he caught the fuzzy little bastards at work. His couch cushions were shredded and his extra set of keys were missing along with half a loaf of bread that he had left on the counter and his favourite mechanical pencil. Basically nothing much had changed except that now he had a Newt with opposable thumbs and the destructive capabilities of approximately ten thousand caffeinated squirrels.

Hermann tried everything to keep himself sane. The first year was a trial. The second year was exhausting. By year five he was fairly certain that Newt had been sent to test him and was quite possibly the anti-christ. Hermann kept a list that was updated and rewritten with frightening regularity

**_Things Newt has done to the Lab or the person of one Hermann Gottleib:_ **

  * Set Hermann’s chalk boards on fire using a dry chemical compound and kaiju skin which exploded spectacularly and was apparently flammable when combined with calcium dust (ostensibly this was to figure out if kaiju skin could be used to build a synthetic fireproof material – test results were inconclusive)
  * Bio-programmed a responsive kaiju muscle group which would flop around vigorously to classic rock and would plaster itself to the side of its tank every time someone walked by (Hermann refused to believe that it could differentiate between people)
  * Covered the entire lab with printed pictures of 90’s cartoons on Hermann’s birthday and managed to find a real cake from some unnameable source in the Boneslums
  * Had a Hallowe’en party in the lab in year 3 which apparently required everything to be crusted in glitter. Including Herman’s computer. There was still glitter jammed in the cracks and crevices of the unit and every so often a great puff of sparkling dust would cough out of the fan and coat Hermann’s shoes.
  * Tried to build a maquette of Kaiju anatomy at a 1:150 scale including internal organs. After not sleeping for 43 hours Newt had collapsed on top of Hermann’s desk covered in glue, paper and string – surrounded by a goopy melting ball of chicken wire and other nameless ingredients.
  * Had used Hermann’s chalk to build a castle for the rat he had domesticated. The rat ate the chalk and died. Newt bought a huge box of coloured chalk as an apology. Hermann used the chalk because it probably cost the department hundreds of dollars and there was no way it was legal.
  * Newt got incredibly drunk the day he found out his uncle died. Hermann found him in the lab red-eyed and manically focused on drawing extensive biological compositions on Hermann’s blackboards.  He let that one slide and was actually indescribably proud when Newt found a chemical compound which could weaken the Kaiju Blue and make it easier to clean up and reduced the half-life.
  * He borrowed Hermann’s coat and burnt a hole in it with Kaiju bile
  * He reformatted Hermann’s computer terminal to play old 3D movies. It took him 2 weeks to realign the screens.
  * Newt used Hermann’s side of the lab to dissect and rehouse his specimen collection (thus the “NO ENTRAILS ON MY SIDE OF THE LAB” rule). They had to move labs for 3 months so that the Environmental Control Unit could decontaminate their actual lab and control the atmospheric decay.
  * He sang along with the radio in brutalized Pinyin at the top of his lungs
  * He drew crayon graphs and diagrams to submit to Pentacost.
  * He smoked in the lab when he was stressed despite the extremely flammable conditions he worked in
  * He stayed in the lab all night and left a trail of food, coffee, cigarettes and clothing  in his wake
  * He came to Hermann in all states of drunk, hungover, and sleep deprived babbling in biological jargon until Hermann led him to the couch and made him sleep no matter what Hermann was working on or how critical his equations were.



**Points in Newt’s favour:**

  * He reacted perfectly to negative reinforcement Pavlovian conditioning using canned air, spray bottles and newspapers.



In reality the list was endless and ran from minor infractions to major transgressions with absolutely no rhyme or reason.

 

* * *

 

 

What struck Hermann as strangest of all about his lab-partner was that Newton never forgot his birthday. Even the first year when they had been working together for only scant months – Newton had known. The gifts were often thoughtful (in a very Newton sort of way). They were always black market and they were exactly what he hadn’t thought he needed.

What didn’t occur to Hermann until year six or seven of their volatile cohabitation was that they had never celebrated Newton’s  birthday. Ever. Not once. No friends. No party. No cake, gifts or cards.

He had stared at his most recent gift – a can of loose leaf black tea – fragrant and oh so illegal – and glanced over at Newt’s desk. They were still unpacking from their recent move from Alaska to the Boneslums of Hong Kong and the desk across the lab was already an unmitigated disaster of binders, notes, specimens and little remembrances of the places they had been while working together. No family. No history. Hermann frowned thoughtfully and filed that away for later, the can of tea weighing absently in his hand.

He watched Newt closely after that.  Listened to conversations. Spied on his mail. Nothing. Hermann LOATHED mysteries which was the primary reason he worked with numbers.  At the end of the day the numbers would give you an answer.

Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he went to medical to beg a favour from the physiotherapy team. The head nurse was shrewd and charged Hermann fresh schnitzel for access to Newt’s files. The ingredients were going to cost an astronomical amount of money so Hermann figured it was karma for 6 years of missed birthdays. Two days later, the clandestine exchange happened, the Nurse left quickly with a steaming plate of schnitzel and Hermann with a rather large medical file belonging to a certain K-Science biologist. Excited to put the mystery to rest, he eagerly flipped through Newton’s charts and health reviews to his staff assessment and very nearly tore it in half.

In an unmistakable scrawl, Newton had listed his birthday as “ _Christmas or whatever_ ”. Being as there was absolutely no way that Newton Gieszler was the second coming Hermann was still at a loss.

He wondered who else he could bribe with schnitzel.

 

It turned out a young man in HR was craving a taste of home and gave Hermann unlimited access to the employee records for fresh schnitzel.

In the official database Newt’s birthday was simply listed as “ _Probably a Capricorn_ ”

Hermann was fairly certain at this point that Newton was cosmically fucking with him – to use the vernacular.

 

* * *

 

Birthdays, however, took a back seat to Newton’s crowning achievement; building his own pons, drifting with a hunk of kaiju brain, nearly burning a hole in his own brain and then fully intending to do it again in less than twenty four hours.

Hermann hadn’t intended to belittle Newt’s genius so viciously, he had been at his wits end for weeks (in retrospect he supposed Newt had as well). He had wanted to produce results. Newt had dragged him all over the ‘Slums looking for a specimen and his leg had repaid him in kind with burning pain. Vanessa had been denied a travel VISA and wouldn’t be able to join him here…Over all Newt interrupting him in front of Pentacost and Hansen earlier that day had been the last straw.

Finding Newt twitching and bleeding in the maw of his own monsterous creation had nearly stopped Hermann’s heart. He hadn’t even spared himself the time to do more than get Newt unhooked, check his vitals and get him propped up on a chair before running (hobbling) off to find the Marshall and give Newt the audience he had been so desperate for.

 

* * *

 

 

It was probably Stockholm Syndrome Hermann decided firmly as he strapped on the other pons unit. Approximately ten years of forced cohabitation would do that to you. Before he was even really aware of what was happening, Newt had hit the damned red button and Hermann was immediately thrown into a three way drift with the impossible offspring of a trans-dimensional monster and Otachi 2.0 _no wait_. And Newton Gieszler.

Newt had made himself the centre of the connection. Hermann was his off load point, a grounding mechanism. At some point when he/Newt /Otachi 2.0 were drifting he realized that Newt was very carefully controlling the amount of direct contact Hermann had with the kaiju brain.  He was protecting him. Giving Hermann access to more of Newt than Otachi 2.0 while Newt hurled himself into the maelstrom of kaiju synapses and literally threw raw data back at Hermann to organize and make sense of.

Then a cruel separation as the connection was cut and Hermann was suddenly himself – or at least just two people instead of two and something else. _Ghost Drift._

Everything after that was a blur of double-vision where each thought quickened strangely in his mind, echoing in a polyphonic stream of consciousness.

_Pitfall. Scunner. Slattern. Raiju. Rift. Payload. Anti-Verse. Stacker. Chuck. Raleigh. Mako._

_The darkest hour always comes before dawn._

* * *

 

 

Hermann didn’t allow himself to be swept out into the streets or to the Jaeger Bay to welcome Mako and Raleigh home. Instead, he followed the eerie trail of Newt’s awareness back to the labs.

Newt was standing in front of his specimen tanks. They were clouded. _Dark_. Hermann realized almost instantly that the specimens were decaying at an accelerated rate. The collapse of the rift had cut them off from whatever had been keeping them alive after they were separated from their bodies.  It took more than a moment for Hermann to realize that these weren’t his thoughts. They were fast and sketchy – a strange hieroglyphic mess of pictures and words and numbers that tasted like Newt on the edge of his awareness.

He only had a moment to consider that unprepared drifting was probably more dangerous than genetic self-experimentation because there is no baseline for self measuring self-awareness and then Newt turned to him, eye bloodshot, nose smeared with gore and nearly vibrating with the electric mania of someone pushed far beyond their limits.

A throbbing began in Hermann’s temples, causing him to wince.

“Newt – are you alright?” A banal thing to say when he was very much aware of how NOT okay Newt was.

“All my work Hermann. It’s all gone. Over. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. I have data but no specimens. In a hundred years when we’ve rebuilt everything and a new generation of survivors has grown up around the bones – my research will effectively be mythology.”

This was all said quietly not with rancor but with absolute resignation.

The throbbing had become an acute stabbing pain behind Hermann’s left eye. A vicious pressure tightened along the base of his skull and crept up to the crown of his head.

“Ghost drift is a bitch isn’t it?”

He was fairly sure Newt had said that out loud but he couldn’t be certain. Their close proximity was suddenly overwhelming and he could feel his bad leg shaking under the strain. Exhaustion was suddenly evident in every joint and muscle he had.

“Quite” he managed to grit out. Leaning heavily on his cane and breathing shallowly between his teeth.

“I think you need…

…To go to bed”

“Better sit down -

Newt…

…Hermann

I’m fine –

\- You’re worse.

I’m pretty sure this is your headache dude –

\- Can you please sit before you fall?

I’m not going to be able to catch you Hermann. Please sit…”

The desperation in Newt’s voice forced Hermann’s eyes open. Newt hadn’t moved but he was shifting on his feet, obviously trying to decide if he needed to move closer or not. Hermann sagged into the chair under Newt’s watchful eyes and put his cane on his – _Oh, Newt’s_ – desk.

Just as he stretched his leg out with a vague feeling of relief, Newt sighed heavily and seemed to crumple where he stood and pain shattered Hermann’s vision as the room when from white to grey around him. He was barely able to reach the comm on Newt’s desk and call for help before he lapsed into unconsciousness, eyes rolled back and blood pooling thickly under his nose.

 

* * *

 

 

Hermann woke up three days before Newt.

They wouldn’t let him out of medical – which was actually fine. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him. Besides, this gave him a much needed opportunity to do some serious thinking about his strange, childish, brilliant lab partner.

When they had drifted, Hermann had found himself literally lost in a labyrinth of Newton Gieszler.

He knew when Newt’s birthday was. He also knew why Newt didn’t celebrate it.

Not to say he agreed with the logic, Hermann fully intended on beating Newt (probably figuratively) with kindness and compassion until he accepted that denying the small joy of a birthday was not an acceptable means of unnecessarily punishing oneself. And for what?  Newt’s unconscious mind was a writhing ball of deep seated guilt, insecurities, shame and a myriad of other small internalized markers of self-loathing that he had always been so careful to hide.

Hermann now realized that Newt’s insane mannerisms were the scars of a childhood spent growing up too fast. Age was an obstacle when you were teaching disenfranchised PhD students at the tender age of eighteen. Age was a barrier when you were trying to defend your first thesis at age sixteen. Age was a weapon when you were trying to convince your peers that you were credible. That you were worthy of their time.

Age was a misconception and it meant that people could use it against you and steal your work. Use you. Dismiss you. Turn you into a professional joke. Age could end your career before you ever got a chance to start.

Newton hadn’t celebrated a birthday since he turned seventeen.

A bunch of PhD students had very nearly succeeded in having him debarred and criminally charged with drug trafficking and illegal animal research. It made Hermann’s blood boil. Made shame churn in his stomach as he thought back to a scant seventy two hours ago when he had yelled at Newt for interrupting him and told him his work was, effectively, useless.

Newt needed a birthday gift but not a birthday party. He needed to know that his age was no longer a weapon that could be used against him.

Newt’s birthday was in four days and Hermann had a plan. It was a good thing he had kept some of his more decadent hobbies over the years. The materials were insanely expensive unless you had a black market connection.

 

* * *

 

 

When Newt woke up three days later he could hear Hermann in the next bed humming quietly.

“Dude…” his voice broke on the rusty word so he coughed and tried again “Dude. Is that Bad Romance? You’re totally humming Bad Romance!”

“I am not you insufferable child. Do you need water?”

Newt could feel a faint awareness of Hermann in the very very back of his mind where there was a vague sense fondness and just a touch of worry. He wondered if that would stay or if it would fade eventually. Maybe he could start researching drift partners. That would be cool. Totally overdone. But then no one had ever preformed a three way drift with a non-human before….

“Are you going to stay awake this time? You’re making me tired with all this in and out of consciousness.”

“Glad you’re still here Hermann. I was worried I was going to wake up all alone in medical. Definitely not my favourite thing ever.”

“I do believe that a certain amount of forgiveness happens in the drift” Hermann began “which is probably why the most improbable teams work out…”

“Think we can break out? I’m starving”

“You have the attention span of a fruit fly”

“Ple – “

“I already signed your release forms. I was just waiting for you to wake up.”

“You are seriously- OOMPF…What the – “

“Pants Newton. You cannot walk through the halls with an uncovered…Erm – “

“Adorable posterior?”

“Pasty white ass”

“HERMANN!”

“Put your pants on Newt – “

“Not only did you just swear you also called me Newt to my face…I think drifting broke you.”

“NEWTON! I will personally shred every one of your vintage Lord of the Ring posters if you do not get yourself covered so we can get out of here.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“I’ll survive.”

 

* * *

 

Hermann escorted Newt back to the K-Science quarters and had them settled at Newt’s kitchen table with tea before Newt even had time to so much as question Hermann’s calm determination.

“Food?” Newt tried plaintively

“On its way. I figured this was cause for celebration that we had both survived an impossible war under scientifically improbable circumstances….And not only that – we survived each other as lab partners AND –“  Hermann held Newt’s attention with a piercing look “- and, we survived being in each other’s heads. Excelled even. I think, Newt, that we have been at odds with each other for all the wrong reasons for a very long time.”

Newt swallowed his tea and looked away, squinting at the small window which let them peek from the Shatterdome to the ‘Slums below.

“Hermann…I. Um. Look, dude. I don’t know what you saw in the drift but let me assure you that anything you saw there was probably exaggerated. The drift works with our memories. Works with how we remember things. It isn’t accurate. Things are amplified and warped all over the place. There isn’t any sustainable credibil –“

“Those PhD students that you never told anyone about who almost had you debarred?”

“They weren- “

“How you had to fake evidence and experiments and destroy some of your own work to protect them?”

“It wasn’t totally – “

“Newt.”

Hermann watched as Newt stubbornly looked at the table top, picking at the cheap wood veneer with a thumb nail.

“Newton.” That worked. Newt looked up at him, shoulders tense and eyes hard.

“I have never known how old you are – all the years we worked together. And to be honest I don’t care. You are insane.” Newt flinched and Hermann couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and stilling Newt’s fidgeting hand with his own. Quite possibly that startled Newt more than anything. They rarely touched unless absolutely necessary or if Newt was being a pest.

“You are a pain in my ass on a regular basis and you are – without a doubt – probably one of the last actual geniuses on this planet. Newt. You have spent so long being desperately afraid of being ostracized and abused because of your age that I think you’ve forgotten something extremely important.”

Newt’s jaw clenched and Hermann could feel the tightly controlled anger lodged in his chest as if it was his own.

“What – that I’m a genius. That I can out think anyone?! That I protect myself with my big-ol’ brain?”

“No Newt.” Hermann sighed. “Newton. How old are you?”

“I – Wait! You know this.”

“I do – but I’m asking you.”

“I’m thirty five! Alright? What is so fucking important about – “

“Newton. How old were the students who nearly got you debarred?”

“Uhhh. I dunno. twenty something – I…I. Oh.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Oh. I’m older than they were.  I grew up.”

“Says Peter Pan.”

“Hermann, I –“

“I’ll be fine Newt. Now rest. Please. You really aren’t better and I promised the nurses you would actually rest if they let you out of medical.”

There was a polite tap at the door and Hermann came back to the kitchen short moments later with one  box of take out and another box of -

“Is that mail?”

“Get well cards and the like. Apparently the K-Science unit was something of an underdog favourite. Your blackmarket contacts all sent cards and the take-out place sent this meal with compliments.”

“No shit!”

“Indeed. I already went through my own mail. Well. Most of it.”

They ate in silence, a peace they had not had before in their working relationship. They easily passed boxes and bowls back and forth until they were both feeling wonderfully full and warm. Hermann got up and made them more tea, his own with only a small bit of milk and Newt’s with two sugars. Just as Hermann was sitting down again something occurred to Newt

“Have you spoken to Vanessa?”

“Yes. Remember I was awake three days before you. She’s fine. We aren’t sure what’s going to happen now.”

“I’m pretty sure no one is sure.”

“Newt, what are you going to do when we finally shut everything down here – it may not be for a year or so…”

“I don’t know man. I guess I could lecture? I mean there might still be some science to be done on theoretical biology. Maybe I’ll get another degree in astrophysics and look into space biology. I – Mmmpf!”

Whatever Newt had been going to say next was effectively cut off as Hermann threw caution to the wind and hugged him. Held on for nearly ten years of repressed affection and stress and _god only knows what else_ was lurking there in their tangled emotionally constipated partnership.

“If you DARE think about sharing a lab with ANYONE else I will…I will. I’ll sue you for…um…Property Damage! I will personally join the review committee of every journal you publish in and will change all the formatting requirements to APA circa 2015. I’ll –“

“HERMANN!”

“What?”

“You’re crushing me dude. Also – you’re sort of sitting on me AND you are being affectionate which means my previous hypothesis that drifting broke you is probably correct….”

Despite all of Newt’s logical observations Hermann didn’t move. He did loosen his grip but only enough so that he could pull back and glare at Newt.

“That isn’t a promise not to move labs”

“You are insane. You have hated me since we started working together. You always bossed me around and…and…”

“Tried to care for you the best way I knew how? Made sure that you didn’t blow yourself up?”

“Made me rewrite graphs”

“Cleaned up your socks?”

“Replaced my coffee with decafe”

“Made sure you ate?”

“Hermann –“

“Newt?”

“I think we’re married.”

“Hardly. Although I would love to see you explain that to Vanessa – “

“Explain what to me?”

Hermann smiled wolfishly while Newt blushed from the collar of his shirt to the roots of his hair.

“Newt was just telling me that we’re married – I believe he was referencing our domestic squabbles and forced cohabitation among other things.”

“Hmmm. Novel.” Vanessa Gottlieb moved into the room, graceful and at peace with her very pregnant state. She took Hermann’s recently vacated chair and seated herself, casually pulling a container of left-overs towards her and picking through the noodles and meat for choice mouthfuls.

“Newt – I don’t believe you’ve met my wife – Vanessa?

“H – hi. I mean. We’ve talked on vid-chat – “

“Because you were yelling at Hermann to quit turning down your music”

“Well it was part of a complicated – “

“ - Biological programming experiment. Yes. I remember. Hermann leave Newt alone he’s turning into a tomato.”

Hermann grinned – Newt had no idea Hermann was capable of such an impish expression. But then…He hadn’t known Hermann could tease. That he had a sense of humour beyond “a Vulcan level of dry wit”. In the drift Newt had picked up some of Hermann, but he had been so focused on Otachi 2.0 (Hermannism) that the impossible worry and sense of loss and loss of self hadn’t made sense until it all clicked into place when Vanessa walked through the door. He focused on them again and just as quickly looked away.

Hermann was very busy kissing Vanessa with one hand steadying himself on the back of her chair and one hand gently on top of her stomach. Newt realized that this was the first time Hermann had seen his wife since just after they found out she was pregnant.

It was too intimate. Too emotional. Newt was intruding but it was his apartment he had nowhere else to go. He shifted his weight, braced on the edge of panicked flight when Hermann broke through his thoughts. Evidentially they were still ghosting just a bit.

“More than a bit actually Newton.”

_Oh fuck_

“You’re always so eloquent. I do have my suspicions from way you controlled the drift that I might actually get more from you than you do from me.”

“That would have been awkward if Otachi 2.0 had survived.”  Newt had a brief demented image of himself in a Godzilla suit communing with the specimens in his lab.

Hermann’s eyebrows hit is hairline as he obviously picked up on the train of Newt’s thoughts.

“That would have been….Odd. Anyways. I think for better or worse,” Hermann smirked and Vanessa rolled her eyes, “that I am going to insist on continuing our lab partnership. Especially if you are serious about working on an Astrophysics degree. It would only make sense and we won’t be leaving for some time anyways.”

Newt  looked at them. Thought of a comfortable life of lab domesticity. Thought of being an -

“Uncle Newt sounds rather cartoonish – I suspect it suits you quite well.”

_Holy shit_

“Dude. I feel like you’re Charles Xavier reading my thoughts over there”

“Hardly. It takes a bit to get used to sorting through the chaos between your ears Newt. I don’t even want to pretend to consider trying to…”

“Hermann,” Vanessa cut in, “I want a bath and a nap and a snack when I wake up – specifically in that order. Quit being a pain and let Newt rest and think on his own for a bit.” She smiled knowingly and left the empty take-out box on the table, dragging Hermann by the wrist to his apartment across the hall. Newt followed them and watched as Hermann and Vanessa each took a bag and went inside, leaving the door open behind them. An obvious invitation in the K-Science dorms where there were (until recently) only two occupants.

Newt sat back down at the table. His thoughts were mostly a scribble of lightning fast associations around family, friends, love. All sorts of love. Plans for the future. What it would be like to be an uncle….He found he was staring blankly at the intimidating box of mail. Pulling it towards himself carefully, Newt made his way to his bed and turned on the radio.

Several hours later Newt sat blinking from a nest of cards, small gifts, letters...It was far too much to process. He was holding the last box in his hands. It was sealed and oddly light and seemed to be stuffed with something.

He removed the note with Hermann’s distinct spikey handwriting which had been stuck to the top of box. He set it aside and cut the tape carefully, looking curiously at the contents.

In the box was an honest-to-god handmade stuffed animal which he picked up in confusion, wondering how his lab partner was connected with this – he looked more closely at the weird assortment of limbs and embroidery thread and his eyes widened

“Knifehead”

Newt continued staring at the animal now cradled in one arm while he reached for the letter and read it

_“Newt,_

_I found this in my mail drop. You have very inept admirers._

_Also, I suppose I should say Happy Birthday, although it seems odd to say “happy” anything considering what has happened to us in the last ten years. I think though, that small victories are just as important as the universal ones._

_Sincerely,  
Hermann_

_Ps. Happy Birthday”_

 

Newt was pretty sure his birthday wasn’t for another day or so – which was when his alarm went off. It was a yearly thing he had set on his personal computer as a private keeper of his birthday.

He stared at the weird little animal in his hands.

“Happy Birthday to me,” he whispered.

 

* * *

 

The next morning as Hermann was walking past Newt’s room on his way to the mess , a sifting trail of paper scraps moving with the central fan system caught his eye so he peered inside to see Newt curled in a ball on the bed amidst a storm of coloured paper and cards.

He sighed quietly and grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed to cover his feral lab partner and paused at the sight of Newt curled protectively around Knifehead. Hermann decided then and there that the sore fingers were worth it.

“Happy Birthday Newt.”

 


End file.
